Search Results (167)

Rainfall is an essential component of boreal forest ecosystems. Aerotechnogenic pollution significantly affects the composition of rainfall. To predict the dynamics of biogeochemical cycles and develop strategies to enhance forest resilience in the Arctic zone, it is necessary to study the composition and characteristics of rainfall. The objective of this study is to evaluate the variation in the chemical composition of stemflow in the most typical pine and spruce forests of Fennoscandia under conditions of aerotechnogenic pollution based on long-term monitoring data from 1999 to 2022. The research was carried out in forests exposed to atmospheric industrial pollution from the largest copper–nickel smelter in northern Europe (Murmansk Region, Russia). The study of rainwater composition was conducted in four microsites: open areas (OA), between crowns (BWC), below crowns (BC) and stemflow (SF). A significant influence of the tree canopy on the rainfall composition was noted. Stemflow was found to have the highest concentration of pollutants, indicating a significant biochemical role of this type of precipitation. The results showed an increase in the concentrations of heavy metals and sulfates in rainwater as we moved closer to the pollution source. Below crowns and in the stemflow of spruce forests, element concentrations are higher compared to pine forests. The highest concentrations of major pollutants in stemflow (Ni, Cu and SO₄²⁻) are observed in June—at the beginning of the growing season. Long-term dynamics reveal a decrease in the concentrations of Cu, Cd and Cr in defoliated forests and technogenic sparse forests. Stemflow volume rises from background to technogenic sparse forests due to deteriorating tree-crown conditions. This is associated with the deteriorating condition of tree stands, as manifested by reductions in tree height, diameter and needle cover. It has been established that under pollution conditions, trees’ assimilating organs actively accumulate heavy metals, thereby altering the composition of precipitation passing through the canopy. Full article

To elucidate the potential of integrated multi-omics approaches for studying systemic mechanisms of mycorrhizal fungi in mediating plant-microbe interactions, this study employed the Tuber-inoculated Corylus system as a model to demonstrate how high-throughput profiling can investigate how fungal inoculation reshapes the rhizosphere microbial community and correlates with host metabolism. A pot experiment was conducted comparing inoculated (CTG) and non-inoculated (CK) plants, followed by integrated multi-omics analysis involving high-throughput sequencing (16S/ITS), functional prediction (PICRUSt2/FUNGuild), and metabolomics (UPLC-MS/MS). The results demonstrated that inoculation significantly restructured the fungal community, establishing Tuber as a dominant symbiotic guild and effectively suppressing pathogenic fungi. Although bacterial alpha diversity remained stable, the functional profile shifted markedly toward symbiotic support, including antibiotic biosynthesis and environmental adaptation. Concurrently, root metabolic reprogramming occurred, characterized by upregulation of strigolactones and downregulation of gibberellin A5, suggesting a potential “symbiosis-priority” strategy wherein carbon allocation shifted from structural growth to energy storage, and plant defense transitioned from broad-spectrum resistance to targeted regulation. Multi-omics correlation analysis further revealed notable associations between microbial communities and root metabolites, proposing a model in which Tuber acts as a core regulator that collaborates with the host to assemble a complementary micro-ecosystem. In summary, the integrated approach successfully captured multi-level changes, suggesting that Tuber-Corylus symbiosis constitutes a fungus-driven process that transforms the rhizosphere from a competitive state into a mutualistic state, thereby illustrating the role of mycorrhizal fungi as “ecosystem engineers” and providing a methodological framework for green agriculture research. Full article

Invasive insects pose significant ecological challenges due to their interactions with other species, which can have a considerable impact on pre-existent ecosystems. In the present study, we analysed the foraging behaviour of the invasive Polistes dominula, which was first detected in NW Patagonia in 2003, and the native wasp Hypodynerus labiatus. We evaluated their foraging behaviour in two types of environments: closed habitats with dense vegetation and open habitats without surrounding bushes and trees. Additionally, we recorded the wasps’ feeding choices at three different heights within each context. Our results showed that these sympatric wasps prefer to forage in different environments and in distinct microsite strata within each environment. Polistes dominula collected food from the ground level in both open and closed habitats, while H. labiatus was more frequently observed in closed areas, gathering resources from higher strata. The observed differences suggest that the collecting sites showed minimal overlap, which may facilitate their coexistence. These findings shed new light on the behavioural processes and interspecific interactions between a highly invasive wasp and a poorly studied native species that inhabit urban and semi urban environments in Patagonia. Full article

Early post-germination physiological responses determine oak seedling establishment success under changing environmental conditions. This study investigated four oak species (Quercus cerris, Q. frainetto, Q. petraea, and Q. pubescens) through direct seeding experiments across four locations in Serbia representing varying habitat conditions. Physiological parameters (quantum yield of photosystem II, total stomatal conductance, and leaf vapor pressure deficit) were measured intensively during the first growing season, along with morphological traits and survival rates. Results revealed that microclimatic and soil conditions exerted stronger effects on seedling physiology than species identity, with air humidity, temperature, and soil moisture being primary drivers of photosynthetic performance. Surviving seedlings exhibited 18% higher PhiPSII and 128% higher stomatal conductance compared to non-survivors, demonstrating that physiological performance is a reliable predictor of establishment success. Species-specific differences were evident. Q. cerris and Q. frainetto maintained the highest photosynthetic activity across sites, Q. pubescens showed intermediate resilience, and Q. petraea displayed greater sensitivity to environmental stress. These findings highlight the dominant role of microsite conditions in shaping early seedling physiology and survival. Physiological measurements, particularly PhiPSII and gtw, provide useful early indicators of establishment success during the first growing season following direct seeding. Full article

Understanding soil respiration (Rs) dynamics in Mediterranean olive groves is crucial for quantifying carbon fluxes under climate change. Soil respiration represents the combined CO₂ efflux from root metabolic activity and microbial decomposition of soil organic matter, processes strongly controlled by soil moisture, temperature, and the quantity and quality of organic matter inputs in semi-arid Mediterranean environments. This study quantified the seasonal and spatial variability of Rs in a traditional rainfed olive orchard planted at a spacing of 11 m between rows and 9 m between trees (≈101 trees ha⁻¹). Continuous measurements were conducted in two contrasting zones, under-canopy (UC) and inter-row (IR), using automated soil CO₂ flux chambers. Annual Rs reached 3.68 Mg CO₂ ha⁻¹ y⁻¹ in UC and 2.21 Mg CO₂ ha⁻¹ y⁻¹ in IR, with substantially higher emissions per unit area beneath the canopy. However, due to its larger surface proportion, the IR zone contributed more to the orchard scale CO₂ budget. Soil water content emerged as the dominant environmental driver of Rs, moderating or suppressing the temperature response during dry periods. These findings highlight the importance of explicitly considering microsite heterogeneity when assessing soil CO₂ efflux and designing sustainable carbon-management strategies in Mediterranean olive agroecosystems. Full article

This study introduces a hybrid siting approach for Offshore Wind Farms by combining bottom-fixed and floating wind turbines to address seabed variability in the Mediterranean region. Using Heraklion Bay, Crete, as a case study, a multi-step methodology was adopted, integrating GIS tools, micro-siting analysis, and WAsP simulations to estimate the energy output of three layout scenarios. A comprehensive energy and economic assessment was performed, including key metrics such as Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Payback Period and Levelised Cost of Energy. Scenario 2, which featured a mixed deployment of Vestas and Siemens Gamesa turbines, proved to be the most financially attractive option, yielding the highest Net Present Value (€167 million) and shortest Payback Period. Sensitivity analysis under a 20% reduction in wind resources confirmed the robustness of this scenario. Results demonstrate that hybrid configurations offer a flexible and scalable solution, particularly in island regions with varied bathymetry and seasonal energy demands. The findings highlight the potential of hybrid offshore systems to accelerate energy transitions, optimise spatial utilisation, and improve cost-effectiveness in medium-depth seas. Full article

This Perspective synthesizes recent (2023–2025) progress in predicting extreme environmental values by combining empirical formulations, physics-based simulation outputs, and sensor-network data. We argue that hybrid approaches—spanning physics-informed machine learning, digital/operational twins, and edge/embedded AI—can deliver faster and more robust maxima estimates than standalone CFD or purely data-driven models, particularly for urban air quality and wind-energy applications. We distill lessons from cross-domain case studies and highlight five open challenges (uncertainty quantification, reproducibility and benchmarks, sensor layout optimization, real-time inference at the edge, and trustworthy model governance). Building on these, we propose a 2025–2030 research agenda: (i) standardized, open benchmarks with sensor–CFD pairs; (ii) physics-informed learners for extremes; (iii) adaptive source-term estimation pipelines; (iv) lightweight inference for embedded sensing; (v) interoperable digital-twin workflows; and (vi) reporting standards for uncertainty and ethics. The goal is a pragmatic path that couples scientific validity with deployability in operational environments. This Perspective is intended for researchers and practitioners in environmental sensing, urban dispersion, and renewable energy who seek actionable, cross-disciplinary directions for the next wave of extreme-value prediction. For instance, in validation studies using CFD-RANS and sensor data, the proposed hybrid models achieved prediction accuracies for peak pollutant concentrations and wind speeds within ~90–95% of high-fidelity simulations, with a computational cost reduction of over 80%. These results underscore the practical viability of the approach for operational use cases such as urban air quality alerts and wind farm micro-siting. Full article

Understanding the soil fungal community in vineyards sheds light on the interactions between plants and their associated microorganisms. For example, identifying arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), which are beneficial to grapevine growth, is a good indicator of soil health. In contrast, other fungi, such as the pathogen group, can be detrimental to vine growth. The present study aimed to characterize the soil fungal community and the fungal diversity present at six Mediterranean vineyards located in Burgos (Spain), delving into fungal functional guilds and focusing on AMF and pathogenic fungal groups. The fungal structure was investigated using DNA metabarcoding in three soil samples taken from each vineyard, and differences in the abundance of functional guilds were assessed. Similar soil fungal community structures were observed among soil sample repetitions within vineyards. In contrast, adjacent vineyards presented differences in their microbial composition. Saprophytes followed by pathogens were the dominant fungal functional guilds across all vineyards. However, no differences in the relative abundance of the different fungal functional groups were observed among sites. The vineyard with the highest relative abundance of AMF (0.5%) also had the lowest pathogen relative abundance from all the sites (29.76%). Also, sites presenting a high relative abundance of pathogens in soil (>35%) had a low relative abundance of AMF (<0.05%). Our results suggest that the fungal community is affected by the intrinsic properties of the soil and the characteristics of each vineyard’s microsite over the effect of the geographical proximity. In addition, to improve our understanding of the soil microbial ecology, we highlight the necessity of prospecting soil fungal analyses into functional groups, interpreting diversity results within taxonomic groups alongside the total abundance of target groups/species. Full article

In the context of climate change and the increasing ecological importance of pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) in European forests, sustainable regeneration strategies are essential for ensuring long-term forest resilience. This study investigates how different conditions of regeneration sites, namely areas under pine canopies, gaps (openings within the pine stand), inter-gap area (open zone surrounding the pine gaps), and clear-cut area (zone where trees were completely removed), affect the early growth performance of artificially regenerated oak stands in Central Europe. Seedling height, root collar diameter, sturdiness quotient (SQ), and light availability (via hemispherical photography) were assessed. The most favorable growth occurred in gaps and under-canopy sites, where light intensity ranged from 44% to 57%, and seedlings reached mean heights of 148.7 cm and 143.4 cm, respectively. In contrast, seedlings in clear-cut and inter-gap areas exhibited lower growth and higher SQ values, suggesting lower seedling stability. In these areas, the average seedling height was 127.2 cm in clear-cut opening and 137.9 cm in inter-gap area. These sites also had the highest light intensity, amounting to 100% and 89.85% of total incident radiation, respectively. Growth performance was also affected by cardinal direction, except within gaps. This study highlights the importance of microsite selection in oak regeneration and demonstrates how optimizing light conditions can enhance reforestation success and climate resilience. These findings contribute to sustainable forest management practices aimed at supporting adaptive strategies in temperate ecosystems facing climate change. Full article

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) performance has emerged as a critical indicator of corporate legitimacy, resilience, and long-term value. However, translating ESG strategic intent into tangible results remains a pressing theoretical and managerial challenge. This paper introduces an integrated framework elucidating the pathways through which Corporate Citizenship (CC), understood as a participatory, relational evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), influences ESG outcomes at the employee level. Drawing on both Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Social Identity Theory (SIT), the model explains how reciprocal obligations and identity-based alignment jointly influence employees’ discretionary behaviors. Perceived Organizational Support (POS) is introduced as a moderating factor that shapes the strength of the CC–OCB pathway. This study contributes to the micro-foundations of ESG by illuminating how individual discretionary behaviors mediate and condition the impact of strategic corporate citizenship initiatives. By advancing a dual-theoretical, micro-foundational approach, the framework moves beyond reputational CSR models and provides a testable, behaviorally anchored account of ESG implementation. Practical implications are offered for organizations seeking to cultivate trust-based cultures that align employee engagement with sustainable performance. Full article

Air quality monitoring IoT is one of the approaches to achieving a sustainable future. However, the large area of IoT and the high number of monitoring microsites pose challenges for device maintenance to guarantee quality of service (QoS) in monitoring. This paper proposes a novel maintenance programming model for a large-area IoT containing 1500 monitoring microsites. In contrast to classic device maintenance, the addressed programming scenario considers the division of appropriate microsites into batches, the determination of the batch maintenance date, vehicle routing for the delivery of maintenance services, and a set of hard constraints such as QoS in air quality monitoring, the maximum number of labor working hours, and an upper limit on the total CO₂ emissions. Heuristics are proposed to generate the batches of microsites and the scheduled maintenance date for the batches. A genetic algorithm is designed to find the shortest routes by which to visit the batch microsites by a fleet of vehicles. Simulations are conducted based on government open data. The experimental results show that the maintenance and transportation costs yielded by the proposed model grow linearly with the number of microsites if the fleet size is also linearly related to the microsite number. The mean time between two consecutive cycles is around 17 days, which is generally sufficient for the preparation of the required maintenance materials and personnel. With the proposed method, the decision-maker can circumvent the difficulties in handling the hard constraints, and the allocation of maintenance resources, including budget, materials, and engineering personnel, is easier to manage. Full article

Power output and economic cost are two critical factors influencing the layout of tidal stream turbine arrays. To identify the optimal configuration, this study establishes a two-objective optimization framework that simultaneously considers these factors. Both the spatial location and yaw angle of each turbine are optimized to enhance overall power output, while the total length of submarine cables, which is used to transmit electricity from the turbines to the onshore power station, is adopted as the metric for economic cost. The Huludao water area is selected as the study domain. A 12-turbine array is examined under varying weight coefficients to investigate the trade-off between maximizing power output and minimizing economic cost. The optimization results show that submarine cable length decreases linearly as its economic weight coefficient increases, while the array’s power output exhibits a stepwise decline. This indicates that, with carefully chosen weight coefficients, economic costs can be significantly reduced without a proportional sacrifice in power output. Furthermore, increasing the number of turbines connected by a single cable not only enhances power output but also reduces total cable length, thereby improving the overall profitability of the optimized array layout. Full article

Robotics has widespread applications throughout industrial automation, autonomous vehicles, agriculture, and more. For these reasons, undergraduate education has begun to focus on preparing engineering students to directly contribute to the design and use of such systems. However, robotics is inherently multi-disciplinary and requires knowledge of controls and automation, embedded systems, sensors, signal processing, algorithms, and artificial intelligence. This makes training the future robotics workforce a challenge. In this paper, we evaluate our experiences with project-based learning approaches to teaching robotics at the undergraduate level at Miami University. Specifically, we analyze three consecutive years of capstone design projects on increasingly complex robotics design problems for multi-robot systems. We also evaluate the laboratories taught in our course “ECE 314: Elements of Robotics”. We have chosen these four experiences since they focus on the use of “cheap” first-principled robots, meaning that these robots sit on the fringe of embedded system design in that much of the student time is spent on working with a micro-controller interfacing with simple and cheap actuators and sensors. To contextualize our results, we propose the Robotic System Levels (RSL) model as a structured way to understand the levels of abstraction in robotic systems. Our main conclusion from these case studies is that, in each experience, students are exposed primarily to a subset of levels in the RSL model. Therefore, the curriculum should be designed to emphasize levels that align with educational objectives and the skills required by local industries. Full article

The application of green manure (GM), particularly leguminous varieties, demonstrates significant benefits for crop cultivation in acidic soils by enhancing the soil organic nitrogen (No) pool. To maximize these agronomic advantages, it is crucial to implement scientifically grounded application strategies. To this end, an incubation experiment was conducted to investigate the content, movement distance, and accumulation of acidic soil organic N (No) at different distances from the GM application microsite. Stylosanthes GM (10 or 40 ton/ha) was applied with or without phosphate fertilizer (monocalcium phosphate, MCP) at 44 kg/ha P, placed on the surface of soil cylinders. The GM/fertilizer and soil were incubated for 14 and 28 d. The results indicated the total organic nitrogen (TNo) content—including both non-acid-hydrolyzable N (NAHNo) and acid-hydrolyzable N (AHNo) fractions—significantly (p < 0.05) increased at the GM microsite after GM application. The influence of GM generally weakened as the distance from the site increased, and the spatial impact range exhibited significant modulation by three key parameters: incubation period, GM rates, and MCP addition. Subsequent analysis revealed a positive correlation between GM rate/incubation period and the movement distance of No fractions at GM microsite, demonstrating rate-dependent temporal dynamics. They were also increased by the addition of MCP after a longer incubation period but inhibited after a shorter period. This information will improve the efficiency of GM use, with or without MCP addition, and decrease the environmental load due to N pollution caused by GM. Full article

This study investigates the mineralogy and chemical characteristics of pre-salt clay minerals, classifies them, and defines assemblages in reactive microsites. Using Electron Probe Micro-Analysis (EPMA), the chemical formulas of Mg-rich clays were determined. Stevensite exhibited low interlayer charge and aluminum content, while kerolite was characterized by a minimal charge. K/S (kerolite/stevensite) mixed layer showed intermediate compositions and charges between these endmembers. Saponite was distinguished by higher levels of Al, K, and Fe, along with a higher interlayer charge. The proposed assemblages are as follows: saponite in mudstone facies (without spherulites/shrubs), with a hybrid matrix; pure kerolite in spherulstone and shrubstone facies, marked by the absence of significant reactions and high preservation of matrix and textures; stevensite in facies with extensive matrix replacement by dolomitization/silicification; and K/S and kerolite in similar facies with intermediate matrix replacement levels and the coexistence of two intimately related clay mineral compositions. This study enables reliable differentiation of these species based on point mineral chemistry and mapping, combined with a microsite approach and conventional techniques. Additionally, it discusses the formation of pre-salt clays, influenced by significant kinetic and chemical interactions during their genesis and burial to depths of approximately 5 km. Full article